A Scenic Route

Poem: The drive to holiday

Photo by Author

Through the narrow roads
Via sleepy villages
Where slightest utterance
Is heard Miles away
Like shallow echos
In quaint bungalows.

With rude engines
He breaks the quiet,
The city nomads
With restless wanderings
And incessant questions
The juvenile sparkle in his eyes
As he gaze in wonder
At ordinary things to country folks.

Down tree-lined roads
Round twisty lanes
Up wild valleys paths
To errant sheep
Blankly staring
As trekkers stride by
With cautious inquisition.

The painfully slow pace
Of utter nothingness
The white noise in his ears
The restless desire to reach
For the laptop, the tablet, the mobile.
The uneasy shuffle in his seat
On this drive into holiday

A strange place
Where nothing is done

Andrew Okri